Violence in the Workplace Decreased Dramatically Since 1993

Although workplace violence still happens and is more common in some professions than others, rates of violence have dropped sharply from 1993 to 2009, according to a recently released report by the U.S. Justice Department Bureau of Justice Statistics.

In 2009, approximately 572,000 non-fatal violent crimes were committed against employees at their workplace, which may seem like a lot, but if you contrast that with the 2.1 million non-fatal violent crimes committed against employees while at work in 1993, there has been roughly a 75 percent decrease in workplace crimes.  Rape, robbery, and assault are all considered non-fatal violent crimes.

Workplace homicide also was down by 51 percent from 1993 to 2009, with 1,068 workplace homicides taking place in ’93 and 521 committed in ’09.

The jobs that had the highest occurrences of non-fatal violence were what you would expect: bartenders, law enforcement, and security guards.  The safest jobs for non-fatal violence were in retail sales.  Workplace violence was more likely to happen to men.  Caucasians also saw more violence in the workplace than African Americans.  The highest rate of violence at the workplace occurred with people ages 20 to 34.

While it’s not good to have any violence happening in the workplace, it is definitely good news to see that violence has decreased in the workplace since 1993, and this fact should help everyone feel safer at work.